SSF Monthly Book Club - Persuasion by Jane Austen

Please join us on Tuesday, October 15th at 6 p.m. in the 3rd Floor, Adult Collaboration Rm #1. Please note that we will not be in our usual space in the 2nd Floor Community Room. The new location is on the 3rd floor, just across from the information desk. We will be reading Persuasion by Jane Austin.

 

ABOUT THE BOOK

Persuasion is the last novel completed by English author Jane Austen. It was published on 20 December 1817, along with Northanger Abbey, six months after her death. The story concerns Anne Elliot, an Englishwoman of 27 years, whose family moves to lower their expenses and reduce their debt by renting their home to an admiral and his wife. The wife's brother, Captain Frederick Wentworth, was engaged to Anne in 1806, but the engagement was broken when Anne was persuaded by her friends and family to end their relationship. Anne and Captain Wentworth, both single and unattached, meet again after a separation lasting almost eight years, setting the scene for a second, well-considered chance at love and marriage for Anne.

 

The novel was well received in the early 19th century, but its greater fame came later in the century and continued into the 20th and 21st centuries. Much scholarly debate on Austen's work has since been published. Anne Elliot is noteworthy among Austen's heroines for her relative maturity. As Persuasion was Austen's last completed work, it is accepted as her most maturely written novel, showing a refinement of literary conception indicative of a woman approaching 40 years of age.

 

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Jane Austen ( 16 December 1775 – 18 July 1817) lived her entire life as part of a close-knit family on the lower fringes of the English landed gentry. She was educated primarily by her father and older brothers as well as through her own reading. Jane was an English novelist known primarily for her six novels, which implicitly interpret, critique, and comment upon the British landed gentry. Austen's plots often explore the dependence of women on marriage for the pursuit of favorable social standing and economic security. Her deft use of social commentary, realism, and biting irony have earned her acclaim among critics and scholars.

 

The anonymously published Sense and Sensibility (1811), Pride and Prejudice (1813), Mansfield Park (1814), and Emma (1816), were a modest success but brought her little fame in her lifetime. She wrote two other novels—Northanger Abbey and Persuasion, both published posthumously in 1817—and began another, eventually titled Sanditon, but died before its completion. She also left behind three volumes of juvenile writings in manuscript, the short epistolary novel Lady Susan, and the unfinished novel The Watsons.

 

Since her death, Austen's novels have rarely been out of print. A significant transition in her reputation occurred in 1833, when they were republished in Richard Bentley's Standard Novels series (illustrated by Ferdinand Pickering and sold as a set). They gradually gained wide acclaim and popular readership. In 1869, fifty-two years after her death, her nephew's publication of A Memoir of Jane Austen introduced a compelling version of her writing career and supposedly uneventful life to an eager audience. Her work has inspired several critical essays and has been included in many literary anthologies. Her novels have also inspired numerous films, including 1940's Pride and Prejudice, 1995's Sense and Sensibility and 2016's Love & Friendship.